Any creature capable of reproducing with another of its kind must feel attraction, but humans are unique in that we can see meaning in our attraction. Hence there is a huge difference between falling in love unconsciously, as if struck by a bolt of lightning, and consciously embracing love’s gift with full knowledge that this is what your soul craves, what you live for, what you will put foremost in your life.

In ancient India the ecstasy of love was called Ananda, or bliss consciousness. The ancient seers held that humans are meant to partake of this ananda at all times. One famous verse of the Vedas declares of humans, “In bliss they were conceived, in bliss they live, to bliss they will return.” Ananda is much more than pleasure, even the most intense erotic pleasure. It is one-third of the formula for the spirit’s true nature, described by the Vedas a Sat Chit Ananda, or eternal bliss consciousness.

As we shall see, the path to love ends with the full realization of this simple phrase. Sat is eternal truth upholding everything in existence; when sat is fully established, there is no evil or suffering because nothing is separate from unity. Chit is the consciousness of that unity; it is the fullness of the peace that has no possibility of being disturbed by fear. Ananda is the ultimate joy of being in this awareness; it is the unchanging bliss that all glimpses of ecstasy aim to become. The path to love carries us to full knowledge of all three aspects without doubts. But the one we taste most often here on earth is the last — ananda—in the joy of falling in love.

Romance is set apart from all other forms of love by the intensity of bliss.

Two people who fall under each other’s spell experience a revolution of their deepest beings from the sudden discovery that bliss has dawned. Spiritual masters tell us that we were born in bliss, but this condition gets obscured by the chaotic activity of everyday life. Below the chaos, however, we are trying to find ananda again; all lesser joys are tiny drops, while ananda is the ocean.

The insights that apply to this phrase grow from our yearning to find bliss: Bliss is natural to life, but once we cover it over, we must search for it in others. The pain of yearning is a mask for the ecstasy of bliss. Bliss is not a feeling but a state of being. In the state of bliss, everything is loved.

Our hunger to return to bliss is one reason why falling in love is never accidental. We all have the subconscious knowledge of what love can do to the psyche. An isolated person, full of frustration and loneliness, is suddenly transformed, made complete beyond the power of reason to explain. In place of anxiousness and doubt there is ecstasy. According to the New Testament, There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.

This blissful sense of being in place of peace and safety lasts through the beginning stages of romance, despite the emotional ups and downs that inevitably follow. Yet ananda is often the last thing we think we find, because before we fall in love there is an anxious period of intense longing. This state is the negative of romance, yet it is also its true beginning, for without separation and yearning, there could be no attraction. To find bliss we have to begin where bliss is not. In our society this is not a hard place to locate.